The Stewards received a report from the Race Director that car Nr 3 – Michael Schumacher overtook car Nr 8 – Fernando Alonso when the Safety Car entered the pit lane at the end of the last lap.

As the overtaking manoeuvre was in breach of Article 40.13 of the 2010 F1 Sporting Regulations, the Stewards decided to impose a drive through penalty but, as it occurred during the last five laps, 20 seconds will be added to the elapsed race time of car Nr 3.

What do you think of Schumacher's penalty?

Schumacher was at fault and he should have got a tougher penalty (3%)

Schumacher was at fault and the stewards gave the correct penalty (17%)

Schumacher was at fault but he should have got a less severe penalty (18%)

Schumacher was not at fault and he should have got no penalty at all (62%)

I had the chance to see the whole situation again, and now I agree with Brawn. Stewards gave no indication that the race was ending under safety car conditions. They informed the teams that the track was clean, they waved green flags and the light was green. Green means GO. Michael shouldn’t be punished for doing his job.

If they really want to punish him (and it looks like they do), they still have an option of “a drop of any number of grid positions at the driver’s next Event”. Let’s hope there is someone reasonable out there.

Either stewards got this wrong, or race control did. Michael acted as per the on track instruction. It was clear there were green flags and green lights displayed rounding Rascasse as the SC pitted. If race was supposed to be finishing under SC why was a “track clear” message issued and green flags shown? Green flag means clear to race. Appalling decision. Fully hope Mercedes do appeal and Schumacher gets his rightful place re-instated.

Was hoping we had seen the last of steward result tampering, apparently something is still rotten in the state of Denmark… well, Monte Carlo.

I had a look at all of this as well. Certainly he was at fault, both McLaren and Ferrari were very clear in instructing their drivers not to overtake. Not sure about Renault etc. Alonso clearly did not even think about defending his position.

Mercedes/Ross/Michael saw the green flags and reacted on that as well as on the message, that the SC was coming in.

So far clear, it was against the rules and Fernando should not have lost his place.

On the other hand, the punishment is somewhat harsh, when taking in account the confusiong information leading Mercedes to the impression they were actually allowed to overtake.
It was the first time the new rules about this were used, so maybe a penalty in resulting Micheal to end behind Alonso, or behind Rosberg, would have been more appropriate, if such an option was available to the stewards.

You can bet if Brawn saw an old lady drop her shopping list in the supermarket queue, he’d be telling Schu to nip his trolley past her. I mean, it’s that level of ‘overtaking’ we’re talking about! They seem desperate for any points and frankly ridiculous. Admittedly, being put back into 7th and told to sit in a corner with a big dunce cap on his head would be more fitting.

There’s a thought, F1 drivers in a post office, Rosberg would have the post ladies around him, Schumacher would be jumping the cue, Hamilton would push, Piquet would knock into someone to let Alonso get in front and Liuzzi would be asking about future employment!

Decisions in the stewards’ office are done by consensus, so everyone would have had to agree before a decision (either way) was announced. Damon doesn’t have a vote but he does have input. Given the open-and-shut nature of Article 40.13, I don’t think that input would have made much difference.

So with Damon Hill present, they would need only one more steward to vote in favour…

Just coz I say that I am a Ferrari fan but will vote impartially on a McLaren penalty, does not mean I will.

And the issue that has been totally ignored is Barrichello’s stupid and childish act of throwing his steering wheel on track. I mean how cranky and foolish can he get and at his age too! Has he already forgotten Massa’s injury or the consequences of a heavy object on the racing line?? How can the stewards not punish that??!!

i cant believe schuey got punished for this. and all along this season ive been saying what a good job the stewards are doing having ex racing drivers there. today i was totally blown away by this decision. alonso and ferrari where caught napping. and in my opinion there has been far more straight forward decisions on breaches of rules gone unpunished this season. the fia(ferrari) win again…..

I agree, i think having ex racing drivers as stewerds is silly idea. You may be a good driver but it doesn’t mean you will understand what judgments need to be made. There is a difference between a judge and an executioner.

Rules are rules and they need to be followed by the book. Clearly we are seeing irregularities specifically in terms of Massa blocking Button.

I think it is a good idea to have ex racing drivers, I just think the issue is misunderstood, the driver do not have any actual say in what happens, and so far, I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest they even play a small role in the decisions. I suspect its just so the FIA can look good.

If they wanted the SC to be deployed at the end of the race they should have left the lights on the SC, race control should not have announced that the SC was coming in, the marshals should have continued to display the SC board and waved yellows.

The rules say nothing about the last lap, just the end of the race. The end of the race is when the driver crosses the finish line and at that point the SC was no longer deployed as the shown by the timing screens and waved green flags.

Yes, I agree Ross Brawn was quite clear about this. I was never a Schumacher fan, but when I saw that move on Alonso I thought it was brilliant! I will be a fan from now on. If Hamilton had not been warned by his team he would have done the same thing, guaranteed!!

This is a total outrage. Rightly said, If they didn’t want overtaking, why give out the green flag, why not end it under Yellows? Why did Alonso floor it and become almost sideways coming out the corner if he was told to hold station? Damon has got to let it go! Quoting his statement from BBC’s website, “… But there was a wry smile from Michael. Slightly ironic you could say.” What has a “wry” smile got to do with doing your job? Did the “wry” smile influence his judgement? Did the 2006 incident influence his judgement? Was that what he meant by “wry” smile?
Total crap!!!

Lol, nice one. He did say in the pre-race build up something about telling the other stewards he may be biased towards an individual driver and so to keep him in check, surprised nobody mentioned that here. So it’s not all Hill’s decision. Where’s the rule clarification? I’ve never been a Schumacher fan but thought it was a great bit of opportunistic driving in an otherwise dull last half of the race.

i think it’s a fault in the rule book ie. the rule that states ‘if the race ends under the safety car, then no overtaking’ needed to be updated in line with the introduction of the safety car line (which alonso clearly crossed first).
i think there should be a function in the rules that allows them to simply reverse the positions (as they should have in australia ’09 with hamilton and trulli).
there are holes in the rules here which mercedes cleverly exploited: the punishment is just ridiculous.

That was a fair decision. Watch Suzuka 2005, when Alonso passed Klein in a similar manouvre. He was asked to wait till Klein caught up and passed him, and to try a fair move once again. In Hamilton’s case there was no waiting for Kimi to catch up.

they have to change that stupid rule, but if the rule is there, they have to apply it, so hill is not here to blame. But schumi can be happy to know that the fans are on his side this time, well done michael. The kaiser is back, and we like to welcome him.

Yup. I had no love for MS before this. His moves against Hill & JV ensures that. But today, I find no way to justify the harsh penalty as in my interpretation of the rules (If a rule can have multiple interpretation, it’s a bad rule), it is a 100% valid move.

Whatever happens, this time MS got himself a lot of new fan (Including me).

Even if there was cause for a penalty, the worst that should have happened was that the positions should have been changed between him and Alonso. This genuinely comes across as a misunderstanding of the rules.

Worst decision of the new stewarding era, a shame too as there will no doubt be calls of bias since Hill was a steward.

Absolutely. Green flag means free to race. Race control and stewards are not singing from the same hymn sheet here. No way FiA or WMSC can punish a driver for racing under a green flag – they have no leg to stand on.

I don’t know. All the evidence Brawn showed pointed to the opposite. And all the BBC panel didn’t think it deserved a penalty. This is another case of giving out arbitrary penalties and extremely opague rules.

I cannot understand why F1 has such open to interpretation rules!!!!!!!!!!

My interpretation of what Brawn and the BBC team were saying was that Schumacher didn’t pass Alonso until after the safety car line. They are right – he didn’t. But they did not take Article 40.13 into account, which says that on the last lap no overtaking is permitted, even between the safety car line and the finish line.

But Brundle said during commentary that the rule had been changed for 2010. As soon as anyone goes past the safety car line in the pits, overtaking is permitted now so surely Schumacher was not in the wrong?

Red Andy is bang on here. The regulation specifically states the rules are different if it’s the last lap. Had this been Lap 77, then there would have been a lap 78 to follow, and when the safety car came in, the race would have “continued”. As it was, the safety car came in when the race ended.

So while Ross might be right in that the teams were told “safety car coming in” and “green flags”, they forgot that on the lasp lap, that doesn’t mean they can charge for the line and overtake.

The penalty for overtaking under the safety car rules is a 25 second penalty, so Hill’s alleged axe grinding doesn’t come into it. The problems we’ve had with stewards in the past isn’t “did they stick to the rule book”, it’s “Why did driver X get a penalty when driver Y didn’t for doing the exact same thing?”

I don’t think there’s a case for pointing the finger at either Ross, Schumi, Alonso or Ferrari for this one, Brawn made a judgement, but the rulebook overrides them, mush feel harsh, but it’s not the steward’s fault either.

You know who’s loving this though, and crowing his way through the motorhome laughing his ass off, though?

I do not think Rule 40.13 applies because of all the marshals waving green flags and the track-side lights flashing green.

As for Keith and others saying that McLaren and Ferrari told their drivers to not try to overtake, well, that is them being over-cautious. McLaren and Ferrari do not make the rules. The FIA does, and the FIA rules state that drivers race under green flags.

The confusion here has been caused by it all happening on the last lap. If the safety car was coming in due to it being the last lap of the race, then yellow flags should still have been out. We all clearly saw green flags and green lights.

For me, this is an open-and-shut case of Damon Hill getting his own back. He was too weak to get the better of Schumacher on-track so he decided to do it track-side.

Everybody is suggesting that green flag means race and overtake in every condition. I think that might be mistaken, even if ross brawn says so. If not, show me the rule about the green flag.

Apart from interpretation of the rules, I think it was clear for almost everyone that the race was finishing on SC conditions. On my own interpretation, what i undestand is that if the SC is out in the last lap, end of the race.

Then it should pel off without putting out the message “Safty car in pit this lap”.
THE FIA MUST BE PUNSHIED 20 millions for this and Hill must pay at least 10% of that. And the money goes to a charity or charities nominated by Schumacher himself.

Some people forget that is car racing. Less competition and more stupidity. I don’t care if it is Schumacher, Hamilton or Alonso, I want to watch a race with cars getting to the finish line racing each other. I hate the safety car thing.

Damon, why are you so worried about a poll on this? A poll tells the FiA what fans really think.

I’m fairly sure that Michael wasn’t thumbing through the rule book coming through the Swimming Pool complex. If race control issue a track clear message to the teams and show a driver a green flag, he WILL race – what else is he supposed to do?

Somebody at Mercedes should have known the rules and reminded Michael. I believe Ross not fully grasping the rules in this area either was a major influence on the situation. While I grant that the structure of Article 40 is flawed (which sequences as if Article 40.7 covers all Safety Car scenarios even though it doesn’t), someone at Mercedes should have ensured they understood everything in the document long before the season began. For once the regulations were settled in time to enable that to happen.

This whole situation is unfortunate, but if the fault lies anywhere, it is with race control for lack of clarity with marshalls. Green is green. Drivers do not get emails. A driver obeys the flags. Flags must take precedence over radio instruction. Drivers are governed by marshalls not race control, yellow means caution slow, green is free to race. Marshalls said race, so Michael did.

Noted your mention on 5Live crew during the practice dear, made me smile for you.

This is such nonesense. So, they say “safety car in this lap”, give the “track clear” sign, green flag the race and then… penalize the driver who was actually alert and doing his job? They penalize the only decent overtaking move of the race? Which was after the SC line and under green flags?

This is bloody outraging. They reward Alonso and Ferrari for sleeping and penalize Schumacher for being within the rules and for providing us entertainment.

We’ve seen some stupid and reckless driving this season, but this was a legitimate pass under waved greens. So it’s okay to do something crazy and get a away with it but a simple pass = 20 sec penalty? Ridiculous.

Trust me S Hughes, the Red really is political for Andy.
Daft saying bias anyway when Todt is the head -ex Ferrari and Schumacher surrogate son? Hmmm easier if he just flipped a coin really. Anyway, the stewards rule mostly and they’ll have look at it. I do think it’s an over reaction and clearly I misunderstood the rules in previous threads.

The SC is deployed on the final lap, by definition, if it leads the field over the start-finish line, regardless of whether it is coming in that lap or not. Rule 40.13 then applies, which says on the final lap the SC peels into the pits and the cars cross the line without overtaking. It’s blatantly obvious.

For the people saying the race didn’t finish under SC conditions because the SC didn’t cross the start finish line at the end of the race is irrelevant, because rule 40.13 is in application.

The big question is did the ‘race ends whilst the safety car is deployed’?
If the track is already cleared up and the SC scheduled to come in on the last lap, do that mean the ‘race ends whilst the safety car is deployed’ or not? Not to mention that they signaling that “safety car in this lap”, means that the first car can dictate the pace (40.11).. basically preparing himself for racing. Remember, the safety car must be deployed, even if it need to enter the pit lane for the photo finish, so they need to at least keep the yellow flags on and not give the green lights/flags.
And at the end, most of the people are racing till the end (except Alonso) even if there wasn’t any overtaking.

If they should gave a penalty, give them to the one who make this stupid ambiguous rules instead of the drivers/teams.

Hey, safety car in this lap it’s a sign that race is going to be restarted, they even give the green lights and flags… but no, there is this 40.13 rule that probably were made to get a better photo in the finish line.. we don’t want SC to get in the way, do we? Without 40.13, SC would just continue like it supposed to do when the track isn’t safe and there wouldn’t be any controversy over this. But what if the track is safe? Without 40.13, they will race right after they crossed the sc line.

In the end, what is the purpose of 40.13? if the track isn’t clear, why SC should go to the pit lane? it the track is clear, why they can’t race since there’s a gap between the SC line and the finish line?
Is it really to get better photos at the finish line? How do you implement 40.13 correctly? Did they implement 40.13 correctly? Why do they have the sc line instead of using the start/finish line if they are going to have 40.13? The best part about moving the sc line before the start/finish line is that we can have a race at the very last second instead of just ceremonially cross the finish line.

You’re wrong, Robert, 40.13 does not talk about final lap but of safety car deployed at end of race – that’s an important difference! Today, the race did not finish under SC because of the “SC in this lap” signalling earlier (and green flags, well…) – Per the rules, 40.13 should not apply to this situation today!

the reason why the safety car gets into the pits, is to get a nice picture of webber and the flag, but in reality is like the safety car was there, and the positions were already unchangable. Sad, yes but not all the gp finishes are like brasil 2008. Schumi we are with you though, and we hope your penalty gets reduced to a more reasonable level. Back to seventh will be right.

Completely with you here. Especially as this was the first instance of this new rule coming into the play.
With the green flags out, it is easy to argument, that the situation was far from clear and offered room for interpretation.

Maybe Ross should protest it to get this cleared. I am not sure, it is possible to protest these kind of desicions though.

That would be a nice chance to see the new procededures at FIA applied.

If anything it’s Damon Hill that’s losing his reputation here. Overtaking under green flags should not be penalized. And if you want to argue that it was safety car finish, well, then just swap back their places and be done with it.

On the contrary, this is going to boost Schumacher’s reputation as a really good sharp driver for those young enough not to see him race before, and the non schumi haters (we know the haters are not going to change their mind about him)… he passed Alonso driving a ferrari. This also would give him support from the ferrari haters, so people would start seeing schumacher as a driver, not the “ferrari driver” he still is in a lot of people minds.